The Healing Power of Erotic Love

An Intimate Life, Berkeley sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen Greene (yes, she’s the one whose work was featured in the movie The Sessions) describes the confusion and dread that gripped the sex surrogate community in the 80’s with the arrival of AIDS. Many sex surrogates died of the disease, and many more quit the profession. Today professional surrogates are hard to find.

Sex had been different before AIDS. When I entered medical school in 1979, a decade and a half after oral contraceptives had ushered in the so-called sexual revolution, people still talked about the idea that erotic love might heal the world. It was "Make love, not war."

AIDS changed all that. By the time I became a sex therapist in the mid 80’s, one no longer heard much about the healing power of erotic love -- either for individuals or for society.

As my colleague Leonore Tiefer has argued in her excellent paper “Sex therapy as a humanistic enterprise” (Sexual and RelationshipTherapy 21:359-375, 2006), eros as a source of intimate connection faded from public discussion once the 80's got underway.

Sex still continues to get a lot of attention, of course. But our current public sexual preoccupations -- from Viagra to pornography, sex addiction, Game of Thrones, and Miley Cyrus -- haven’t centered much on the healing potential of erotic love.

We no longer hold by “Make love, not war.” Eros is no longer seen as much of an answer to the world’s problems. One looks wistfully back to the 70s' cockeyed idealization of our gentler instincts, including our instinctive love of sexual pleasure.

But the goofy idea that sex might heal a fractured world still probably occurs now and then to young couples discovering erotic love together for the first time. It’s an idea we probably shouldn’t let vanish completely.

The sexual impulse, like the religious impulse, can do tremendous harm as well as good. We need powerful social structures to contain it and direct it for the good.

But let’s not forget the power of sexuality not just for procreation and entertainment, but for affirmation, connection, and healing as well.

Being married for many years gives me some perspective.
Experience has taught me a lot about many things:
Love, family, desire, sensuality...
Lots of things. And it gets very complicated.
At any rate, it does for me.

Does eros have the potential to change the world?
Everyone has a different answer to that question.
Perhaps it can change the way we look at the world.
And that can be a very healthy thing for our society.
Unless, that is, we go too far, and get unrealistic.
Life depends on family, which can be imperiled by too much eros.
Of course, that's a danger with any new idea.

I don't want to sound like an old fuddy duddy.
So many things have changed in my long life.

America isn't exactly the same place I grew up in.
Not by a long shot!

Up til recently, traditional mores kept us in check.
Good girls weren't suposed to cross certain lines.
Let's face it, nobody wants to go back to Victorian times!
You can bet on that.

Don't assume, however, that new lifestyles are always healthy.
Yes, I know some people are happy trying new things.
Keep this in mind, however: tradition is important.
Eros should never trump decency and morality.